The present invention relates to a method and/or architecture for specifying silicon device programming parameters generally and, more particularly, to a method and/or architecture for presenting a programmable die to appear to a user as a family of independent devices.
Developing code for a programmable die to meet a customer""s requirements for a new device currently takes a considerable amount of development time and money. The customer""s requirements for the new device are matched with the capabilities of existing programmable die, marketing rules and constraints imposed by the vendor. The matching task commonly involves multiple software programs operating separately, or in combination, to define the new device. Consequently, a considerable amount of redundancy is encountered among the multiple software programs resulting in inefficiency. Translations of data among the various software programs also result in a high probability of error.
Referring to FIG. 1, a diagram illustrating conventional method 10 for developing a specification for the new device is shown. A user 12 provides a description of a first new device to a graphical user interface (GUI) presentation task 14. The GUI presentation task 14 relays the first new device description to a first processing task 16. The first processing task 16 includes a mixture of rules for (i) the silicon that is to become the first new device and (ii) marketing considerations. Once a datasheet type specification for the first new device is created, the first processing task 16 relays the specification information to the GUI presentation task 14 for display back to the user 12.
The user 12 commonly presents a description of a second new device to the GUI presentation task 14. The GUI presentation task 14 conveys the second new device description to a second processing task 18 to generate another datasheet type specification. The second processing task 18 contains a copy of the silicon rules and marketing rules used in the first processing task 16. Once a specification for the second new device is generated, the second processing task 18 relays the specification information to the GUI presentation task 14 for display to the user 12.
In situations where the user 12 creates a family of new devices, additional processing tasks (not shown) similar to the first and second processing tasks 16-18 are created, one for each additional new device. Each additional processing task contains a copy of the silicon rules and the marketing rules. As a result, a considerable amount of redundancy is involved in developing specifications for the family of new devices.
The present invention concerns a method for creating a specification for a device. The method may comprise the steps of (A) creating a base class having a first rule set for a programmable die, (B) filtering a definition for the device against a second rule set to present a result in response to creating, and (C) polymorphing the base class according to the result to present the specification for the device in response to filtering.
The objects, features and advantages of the present invention include providing a method and/or architecture for specifying silicon device programming parameters that may (i) present information to an end user in such a way as to develop a family of parts from a base die, (ii) be cost efficient, (iii) provide faster and more accurate code to market, (iv) support a growing family of devices with minimum development overhead and/or (v) reduce testing time.